1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates, in general, to vehicle theft prevention devices, and in particular, to devices for preventing theft of a vehicle whose engine is already running.
2. Information Disclosure Statement
The incidence of armed vehicle theft has risen to epidemic proportions in this country. If the driver attempts to thwart the theft, he or she may well be killed or seriously injured by the thief or thieves. The well-known solutions for preventing theft of a parked vehicle, such as locks or hidden switches or other engine-disabling devices, are all intended to disable the vehicle only while it is parked with the engine off. However, such devices are of little use once the vehicle's engine has been started and the driver's keys are in the ignition.
Additionally, if a theft-prevention device were to immediately disable a running vehicle when thieves forcefully ejected the driver during a so-called "car-jacking" attempt, the angry and frustrated thieves could become vengeful and then kill or seriously injure the driver in retaliation.
It is therefore desirable to have an anti-carjacking device that becomes automatically engaged when the driver of a vehicle is compelled to exit the vehicle while the vehicle's engine is running. Such a device should not actually disable the vehicle until the thieves have driven a safe distance from the ejected driver, to prevent retaliation by the thieves to the driver. Furthermore, it is desirable that such a device should not require cumbersome or habitual arming procedures to be performed by the driver, and should not interfere with normal operation of the vehicle, but instead wait unobtrusively for the driver to be unwillingly ejected from the running vehicle. Such a device preferably should be attachable to any type of a gasoline or diesel motor-operated vehicle such as buses, cars, trucks, any other motor vehicles well-known to those skilled in the art.
A preliminary patentability search in Class 307, subclasses 10.2 and 10.3, produced the following patents, some of which may be relevant to the present invention: Caleskie et al., U.S. Pat. No. 3,781,789, issued Dec. 25, 1973; Krusoe, U.S. Pat. No. 4,133,410, issued Jan. 9, 1979; and Tejeda, U.S. Pat. No. 4,745,897, issued May 24, 1988. None of these patents disclose or suggest the present invention.